


Where Do You Think You're Going?

by Kira_Dattei



Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [5]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Not Really any Whump, Post-Canon, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: After Merrick, Nile declares that these people don’t even make being on the run look the same as anyone else.Prompt: On the Run
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994617
Kudos: 101





	Where Do You Think You're Going?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a whump writer so I can't promise a huge amount of whump in all of these. I just picked the prompt from each day that actually sparked an idea and ran with it.  
> I'm mostly using these as a way to get a feel for the characters and I simply love the relationships given in canon and wanted to explore them.
> 
> This is one of the prompts that ended up not being any whump. It was also one of the last ones I wrote and that might not have helped me actually work in something with more whump without feeling like I was just repeating myself. ^_^
> 
> Oh well, hope you still enjoy some bonding between Nicky and Nile.

Two weeks after Merrick and they were still dealing with the aftermath, taking calls from Copley daily to let them know where someone who knew about them was hiding out so they could really make sure they were back to existing in obscurity.

Unfortunately, there had been a select few survivors of their escape as they’d been so focused on taking out Merrick and that meaning anyone who wasn’t right in front of them slipped through the cracks. There had been enough and they wanted to take care of this before they disappeared that they’d split up to cover more ground quicker.

Nicky had stayed with Nile while Joe had stuck with Andy. None of them had really been happy about it but necessity was the determining factor here and they all accepted that they needed to finish the clean up before they could really have the freedom to do what they really wanted, like take a few days or weeks and leisurely recover from everything that had happened so they could move forward.

And it had been Nicky and Joe who had suggested they split the way they did, neither of them willing to let Andy go alone and they figured Nicky would be better at helping Nile settle in to being around them than Joe as Joe tended to be a little more intense.

And Nicky knew that Joe would be better off being the one to stick with Andy, that he would benefit from seeing her heal and help keep her safe. Joe was a very protective person after all, not only toward Nicky though that did tend to exist on another level.

They were in constant contact with each other and were only a few hours apart but they were still feeling the strain considering everything they’d dealt with over the course of a few days.

“I think I jinxed us,” Joe had told Nicky over the phone a few days ago. “I was thinking too often that there wasn’t much left in the world we hadn’t experienced yet.”

There was mostly sadness to his voice, Nicky had noted. The rage toward Booker’s betrayal was already settling in his love when it was still all Nicky could think of. He figured Joe and Andy had likely spent a lot of this time talking. While they had all been comfortable with each other, Andy tended to be very picky about who she discussed certain topics with. She liked talking to Joe about people, liked the level of optimistic realist he usually was and she thought he noticed interesting things about people.

Nicky didn’t blame her: he loved Joe for that as well. Joe was his balance, after all, the one who helped Nicky see the best in himself as well as others. Nicky was only darkness without his love.

It was amusing that Joe would say exactly the same about Nicky.

Nicky and Nile were currently heading back to their motel room, ready to wash off the blood, for once it only being that of others as they had managed to remain uninjured. Another loose end tied up and they were one step closer to putting Merrick behind them.

As was becoming the norm, Nile used the trip to satisfy some of her curiosity of them and their lives. Nicky didn’t mind and he was looking forward to what she would ask Joe and what sort of stories he would concoct. Joe pretty much always told their history with flair, keeping it at least three quarters factual and leaving it up to who was listening to figure out when he was elaborating.

Him doing that was something that had always been a part of Joe, something he’d been taught in being a merchant, learning what people wanted to hear and then giving it to them even if it was in ways they didn’t expect. Now it was a tool to help them get better at picking out lies.

“Copley says we’ve almost got them all, just about six more that are trying to make waves about those people that don’t die,” Nile noted.

“Good. I’m ready to have this behind us,” Nicky replied, needing to work to keep his voice even. Nile didn’t deserve his frustration and he would try his best to make sure she didn’t receive it.

“I gotta say, you guys don’t even make being on the run look the same as what I’d expect. I was figuring a few weeks in some desolate cave until it all blew over and people moved on.”

Nicky gave her a slight smile. “We usually do move on quickly after a mission. But considering what we’re cleaning up after, the more…hands on approach is necessary.”

“You worried we haven’t tracked down that doctor?”

Nicky’s hands clenched on the steering wheel at the thought of that woman. “Yes. She presents a serious threat to us. Not only because of what she knows about our immortality but also because she never seemed to be deterred from figuring us out. As I told her, she isn’t the first to try and claim this ability we have for herself and she’s just as bad as anyone who wasn’t a doctor. She never accepted that she was doing something wrong by killing us many times simply because we would come back.”

Nile shuddered slightly, crossing her arms. “Sorry I didn’t kill her.”

“You didn’t know who she was. And you weren’t the one she hurt.” Nicky had never once blamed Nile for not killing Kozak. They had all been distracted by all that had been revealed to them just before Nile showed up and it was really Nicky and Joe who had failed to kill her since they were the ones she had cut apart for hours.

That woman had made Nicky watch Joe die so many times and the first thing Nicky should have remembered to do once he was freed was break her neck. They’d been too pressed for time for him to do as much as he wished, after all.

“You really want to be the one to take care of her, don’t you?” Nile suddenly asked and Nicky glanced over to her briefly.

“What makes you say that?” He was used to Joe being the one to be able to pick up on things like that. Andy could too but she also tended not to call him on it as she figured if someone had actually managed to piss Nicky off enough that he wanted them dead then they most likely earned it so there was nothing to call him on. Joe just preferred he not hold onto anger.

It was one thing Nicky had never really needed to worry about with Joe as his love set aside rage faster than Nicky did.

“It’s just that you’ve asked Copley about her directly five times.” They came to a stop sign and Nicky was able to give Nile a flat look for a good thirty seconds before she caved. “And I asked Andy about it yesterday and she said Joe had told Copley to forward anything regarding Kozak to us.”

Nicky couldn’t help but smile warmly at his love doing that without them discussing it. They were hundreds of miles apart and it made no difference to how well they knew one another.

“Joe wants this to be finished, everything to do with Merrick. He knows he will be struggling to work through everything that happened but also knows that he will be avoiding it as much as possible until the danger is passed.”

“One thing at a time kind of guy, huh?”

“Not so much that as everything connected to Merrick is a large adjustment for him to work through. He’ll need to put a lot of focus into processing it all for it to be what he needs.”

“What about you?”

Nicky paused in replying, considering how best to describe his own process. He had never actually had to describe his methods like this as the others had always just figured it out on their own with varying degrees of accuracy. It seemed that Nile would be more prone to questions and Nicky wondered if that was just an aspect of the generation she was born in or if it had more to do with how they had found her so soon after her first death.

If they had found Booker sooner, could they have made a difference in his choices?

“I will mourn Andy and try to be prepared for the time she will be gone. I will continue to get to know you and do all I can to help you adjust to the parts of this long life that you do have control over. I will continue to do what I think is right and I will love Joe until the day I am gone from this world.”

“What about Booker? You were the one to ask for the longest sentence.”

He was really hoping she wouldn’t be confident enough to ask that. But Nile was proving to be reckless in many ways. She would fit in well.

“It’s not that I don’t understand why he did what he did. We have all been there at some point, where the desire for death overshadows everything that life allows us. But the fact is that he chose to ignore that we are never alone. Andy is the only one who has experienced that by being the first. But every single time there is another of us, we are allowed to be brought together and become so much more than we ever were without. He chose to believe himself to be alone when we were right there.”

Nicky felt his anger rise as he recalled what Booker had said to him and Joe, acting like they didn’t struggle to find their way to what they shared now, like it didn’t mean they had something to lose every single time one of them died that would leave the one left as half a person. It was both Nicky and Joe’s greatest fear and Booker had been cruel to ignore it. Likely not intentionally as grief like he’d been caught in meant he wasn’t actually considering anyone but himself, but still cruel.

“Okay, but you still haven’t answered me.”

Nicky let out a sigh, not really surprised that Nile was again calling him on his evasiveness.

“I will despise what he did for a long time. I will not be able to forgive him for much longer. And when he is back among us, I will not trust him until he is put to the test many times and doesn’t give in to the same temptations as he did with Merrick. If he fails in that, I will not remain near him, no matter how much I come to miss him.”

“And if you stay away from him, so will Joe?”

“Yes, Joe will respect my decision just as I will respect him deciding to remain in contact with Booker as he likely would. We don’t control one another. I will simply never trust Booker with either of our lives. He would never again be at my back.”

Nile was silent for a few moments before she said in a quiet voice, “That’s pretty harsh. People make mistakes, especially when they don’t take the time to deal with their shit. And, no offense, but none of you really seem like the poster children for dealing with your shit.”

“And not all mistakes should be forgiven, especially if there is no proof that they have learned anything and grown from those mistakes. If he proves that he understands what his mistake was and is willing to change, there is nothing to worry about and I will be happy to be alongside my brother again.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about there. He knows.”

Nicky gave her a slight smile as he pulled into the parking space in front of their motel room door but they paused before getting out. “And I agree. I simply have a tendency toward doubt and need to see the actions people take rather than trust blindly in the words they say. After all, the last time I allowed myself to follow blind faith, I ended up as part of a deeply misguided massacre.”

“Right, Crusades,” Nile said absently, like she was just recalling how old he and Joe were, which was entirely possible considering it was mentioned amidst a lot of other information just before things went completely to shit. She then turned to him with a slight smile, the expression meant to be comforting. “Well, let’s get this wrapped up so you guys can start dealing with shit. I don’t want to start this whole life off thinking I’ve got to spend the next few thousand years with the most maladjusted people there are on the planet.”

Nicky laughed as they both got out of the car, Nicky going to the trunk to grab their gear bags. “I beg your pardon but we are fantastically well-adjusted.” Nile just gave him a long look as she grabbed her bag from him. “Most of the time,” he added honestly and she gave him a satisfied look as she led the way to the door of their room.

She was a good fit with them. She would be what they needed right now, Nicky knew. He looked forward to watching Joe get to know her. His love would be struggling to come to terms with much and Nile would be the perfect combination of distraction and help in him facing what he needed.

They could find balance with her in a way they hadn’t thought would have been possible without Andy. Not the same, of course, because absolutely nothing could replace Andromache, just as nothing had ever replaced Quynh in their lives. But Nicky believed it wasn’t something they needed to worry about. They wouldn’t be completely lost without Andy.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed. It's not one I'm as fond of that I've written for this challenge but it wasn't to the point that I felt there was nothing there and restart so I'm good.


End file.
